Butts In The Seats

Is That What My Funder Is Thinking?

Earlier this month Albert at philanthropy blog, White Courtesy Telephone, did an entry on "Four Common Funder Misconceptions About Non-profits" and made a post along the same vein later in the month.

The entries offer an interesting, if not daunting, peek into the thought processes of funders. Albert encourages them to rethink their attitudes in terms of micromanaging non-profits, seeing their role as culling out the weak organizations, encouraging charities to merge and run themselves in a more business like manner.

Albert encourages funders to give applicants some slack when it comes to grading neatness.

"There’s a kind of mental trap that some grantmakers fall into. When we’re learning the ropes, we quickly realize there’s not enough money to go around for all the worthy applicants who approach us for funding...So we devise many little tests of nonprofit worthiness—including a grant-seeker’s mastery of English punctuation—to help rationalize to ourselves our recommendation that funding be denied to certain groups.

To my younger funder colleagues: Don’t fall into this trap. There are more honest ways to rationalize a denial of funding, ways that can put your relationship with applicants on a much sounder footing."

As a side note, while Albert doesn't feel that running charities like businesses will work for many organizations, he does concede that a profit/non-profit hybrid covered in a recent issue of Fast Company could be viable for theatres. I wouldn't be surprised if organizations structured like the one profiled in the magazine weren't the future of arts oriented non-profits.